Libraries, Dreams and Sea Hags

I have always loved to read. When I was a young girl I would read the phone book, the t.v. guide and the dictionary, even hunting magazines my father left around if there was nothing else available. I was a walking encyclopedia of useless facts and miscellaneous information. It used to annoy the hell out of my sister.

When I was around 14 years old, I loved to go to the public library. The public library in my suburban neighborhood was built only two or three years earlier before I had discovered it. A magnificent brick building, it was modern in design and structure, holding more rooms of books than I had ever seen before. It was more like a cathedral rather than a place of learning to me.

The only libraries I had been acquainted with before were from elementary school. There were no video tapes or games to rent, or computers to surf the net. Just books and librarians.

The librarians were usually older and crotchety, the typical librarian/spinster cliché reminiscent of the movies and our imaginations. Their faces were pinched and their pointy noses held the glasses that slid halfway down, adorned like badges of honor rather than a fashion statement. On a good day, they looked like sea hags. I tried not to look at them, because they always seemed to be yelling at me. I was talking too loud or walking too fast, giggling with my friends, chewing pink bazooka gum or doing something else that always caused me to be thrown out.

All that changed the day my family moved to another part of town, enrolling me in another school. I was in fifth grade and the first place I headed for was the library. The school was still old, and had their own assortment of sea hags. I wondered why a person so unhappy would take on such a position. They must not like to read, I reasoned. What else could it be?

But the head librarian at my new school was not ominous at all, in fact, it was a man. This was something so foreign to my sense of balance, and curiosity got the better of me. It wasn’t that I had a crush on him or anything like that, he was as old as my dad, for goodness sakes! But he was just so…….learned. I had to pay more attention. He had an air about him of authority and it was clear the various sea hags milling about respected him greatly. He was very quiet and soft spoken, but had a wonderful, kind smile.

His name was Mr. Muolo, and it was he who first fed my hunger for books, my obsession with reading. He would never shoo me away if I had a question, and was always helpful in locating a certain book for me. He taught me how to read the index of library cards, listed under the dewey decimal system, and the difference between fiction and non-fiction books and how they were filed. His smile would bring me such joy if I answered a question correctly, and I felt a hundred feet tall to know he was proud of me. He always saved a stack of books for me to file at the end of the day. It was like I entered another world. I thought that perhaps I would even become a librarian myself, venturing into Library Science as a career when I entered high school.

So discovering the bright and shiny library down the road from my house during my high school years was a treat beyond belief. I could walk on the side of the road, a lane not much traveled and lacking in sidewalks for the moment. I would venture down on a Saturday morning around 10:00 am and return home in the early afternoon. With 14 or 15 books stacked high in front of me, I maneuvered my way home from memory, as I could barely see the path in front of me. Many a summer evening found me sitting on the back stoop, reading to my hearts content.

I can’t tell you very much about what I read back then, but I do remember my favorite author was Beverly Cleary. She wrote about young girls and going to Oberlin College, buying cashmere sweaters and having careers as writers. It was a world I knew I would never enter, but was content to visit it now and then. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but didn’t know what form that would take, or when.

Three years ago I dropped off several copies of two of my books at the Williamson Public Library; bought from the Friends of the Williamson Public Library, without a sea hag in the bunch.

“We love your book” she said simply. “We want others to love it, too.”

I have written books that sit in the Williamson Public Library.
Life offers up such wonderful surprises, I have given up trying to anticipate what they might be. I can’t help but think Mr. Muolo is looking down from heaven and smiling.

I have written a book that sits on a shelf of the Public Library where I live.

I hope I do him proud; then, now and forever.